VLVL The deal

[Otto]

----- Original Message -----
From: "jbor" <jbor at bigpond.com>
To: <pynchon-l at waste.org>
Sent: Friday, March 19, 2004 10:35 PM
Subject: Re: VLVL The deal

>
> The chapter opens with a report of how Frenesi told Brock about Prairie,
> and Brock's knee-jerk response to that news (294.1-8).

Brock *finds out* about Prairie, the text doesn't say here that Frenesi has
reported it. He's a cop and finding out things is his profession.

> The events described from
> there on in are a direct result of this conversation, with Frenesi the one
> who is manipulating things

Pure speculation without textual evidence, and the "conversation" we get
to know is only one sentence spoken by Brock.

> -- NB that the whole episode takes place "nearly
> a year after Frenesi had moved out", so Prairie is something like 16-18
> months old at least. If it's all and only Brock's doing then how come he
> hadn't harassed Zoyd before this?
>

The text says that something sinister, "something from his nightmares of
forced procreation" (this goes back to p. 276-77), makes him going after
Prairie. I can't see Frenesi's hand in this.

If it's Frenesi "who is manipulating things" how come that when we first
encounter her in the novel she's married to Flash for years already and not
together with Brock? Why aren't we told how and when she'd lost her magic
spell?

> Hector doesn't answer to Brock; he is worried about losing his job in the
> Nixonian restructure (295.11-15), and that is why he agrees to run this
> "estupidass marriage-councelor errand". And, as we saw earlier, Hector
> does
> go out of his way to look out for Zoyd's best interests. He calls Sasha to
> come and look after Prairie. This unexpected act of kindness goes a long
> way
> to explaining the sort of grudging mutual trust and respect which has
> built
> up between the two men over the years.
>
> Finally, NB also the final touch in Brock's sexual powerplay -- the S&M
> overtones which Zoyd projects onto what he witnesses in particular --
> where
> Brock forces Zoyd to watch as he escorts a "steadfastly smiling Frenesi"
> into the car which will take them both away to be together. Zoyd is made
> to
> confront the fact that "she'd been somewhere inside all along, in Brock's
> custody" (304.11-25). There's a deliberate pun on that word "custody"
> here.
>
> best

Sure it is but it's unlikely that Frenesi has seen Zoyd, who is standing
"unobserved in the afternoon shade" (304).

"unobserved" by whom if not by Frenesi? The whole thing is just another last
humiliation arranged by Brock especially for Zoyd. It's as if he'd say a
last time: forget her! A very archaic ritual by the way, the victors take
the women.

Otto